Encouraging Bicycling in the City of Geneva, NY

"The purpose is, as the title suggests, determining ways
in which bicycling might be encouraged in the city of Geneva. Suggestions are based on working models from
bicycle friendly cities elsewhere. One example suggestion is a bicycle route map modeled after a map published by the city of Ithaca/Tompkins County.
The main issue is that there aren't a lot of bike-only
routes in the City of Geneva. So I am looking at roads
that are less traveled by cars while considering where
people actually want to get to and from. This project includes a survey to the community asking questions like:
"Do you own a bike?", "What do you use it for?", "If you
did, what would you use it for?", etc. The results of the
survey will be used to determine whether people want to
be more of a biking community."- Susan Kridler, William Smith '11Possible Art History Major

What are your goals for the project? What do you hope to accomplish?

Distributing the survey and collecting results to assess the community's current biking
culture and needs.

If the community wants to become more biker friendly, then Kridler hopes to
complete compiling a general route system.

If the community is hesitant about utilizing bikes more, then a new direction
would be to provide the community with information about the importance consequences that biking would have on the environment and on the community.

Creating a proposal on how to make people aware of where the bike routes are and
which roads are more conducive to biking than others.

One idea is to paint the roads (at least temporarily) so that drivers as well as bikers can
distinguish which roads are more accessible (and safe) for bikers.

What have you personally learned so far? How has this project affected you?

"I've learned that it's very important to actually speak to the people that are more directly
involved with the issue such as people at the bike center in Geneva." Kridler has talked to
several bikers in the Geneva community on how things should be done in addition to looking at models of cities and towns that also have a biking program in place. Through her
research she has learned to distinguish the details of what is comparable to the City of Geneva.